Comments

Hi Joe & Nathan,
I wonder, could you change the authority setting for our MO observation in such a way that only we would be allowed to change our MO observation names. We have most our MO observations supported by the herbarium specimens and we would like to use the same name on MO observation as what it is on the corresponding herbarium label. I have called for getting a special comments (so-called Annotations), when that is not possible use Comments or if that is not possible, use tha naming change and do not allow Consensus or any other user change the original name. In this state, MO is nothing else that the pre-school children game.
Nathan, you feel insulted by my comments. We understand you and we feel the same. Our experience of the collection management is totally ignored.
Cheers,
Adolf & Oluna

You guys are imperfect and the rest of MO is even less perfect. MO voting together creates better results than any individual, even you. Voting is integral to MO. If you don’t like it, please post your herbarium elsewhere and let MO function.

Mushroom Observer is a great system, but it should protect the name the users gave to their MO from other users. The only person that should be allowed to change that MO observation name should be the original user who created the MO observation. PERIOD. Adolf

Using the name “Mycena aurantiidisca” is like calling a vampire bat the “furry bloodsucking bird”. We know now that bats really aren’t birds.

Using old names that have been replaced for a reason perpetuates ignorance and (in the long term) confusion. (Now, if you think the author(s) don’t have good reason, that’s a different story. I have an innocent-until-proven-guilty attitude towards published mycologists.)

Would you support using the names “Agaricus haematopus”, “Agaricus galericulatus”, etc.?

I prefer to look on the bright side and see old observations being brought up with new names as a chance to learn the best names better.

They mean exactly the same thing. It doesn’t matter which name you apply to these observations at all. Bumping observations with synonyms is a complete waste of your time.

Yes, Atheniella is a more taxonomically accurate name, and that’s why the site automatically links synonyms and clearly notifies you of such right at the top of the observation; it even does so without obnoxiously spamming the feed with old observations.

They are synonyms, they both mean the exact same thing. One is not superior to the other in any way; they are equivalent. So, what is the point in proposing synonyms for pages worth of observations? The site automatically links the names. Hell, it even tells you the “preferred” name right inside the observation. If you search for a “preferred” name, the results are automatically populated with observations that have a “deprecated” name as the consensus. The same parameters apply to distribution maps. Proposing synonyms is literally pointless, as far as I can tell, so why do it?